Using IaaS Clouds on FutureGrid

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud computing encompasses techniques that have driven major recent advances in information technology supporting elastic, on-demand, "pay as you go" computing as a service. Key technologies behind IaaS cloud computing are resource virtualization, as well as cloud middleware that enables the management of clusters of virtualized resources through service interfaces.

The FutureGrid testbed provides capabilities that allow users to experiment with open-source cloud middleware and virtualization platforms, and there are different ways you may want to use these platforms in the testbed. This page guides you in selecting from FutureGrid capabilities best suited to your goals, and provides links to respective tutorials:

Nimbus Clouds

Nimbus is an open-source service package that allows users to run virtual machines on FutureGrid hardware. You can easily upload your own VM image or customize an image provided by us. When you boot a VM, it is assigned a public IP address (and/or an optional private address), and you are authorized to log in as root via SSH. You can then run services, perform computations, and configure the system as desired.

Nimbus is available across various FutureGrid sites, and there are two open-source hypervisors in use in FutureGrid Nimbus clouds: Xen and KVM. Nimbus in FutureGrid is the recommended platform if you are interested in experiments within a cloud, across clouds, or in those not amenable to para-virtualization, as the Nimbus/KVM cloud (alamo) supports "classic" virtual machines.

OpenStack Clouds

OpenStack is a recently open-sourced, IaaS cloud computing platform founded by Rackspace Hosting and NASA, and used widely in industry. It includes three components: Compute(Nova), Object Storage (Swift), and Image Service (Glance). OpenStack Nova supports an
Amazon Web Services (AWS) complaint EC2-based web service interface for interacting with the Cloud service, and can be used with the same client-side "eucatools" that is used with Eucalyptus.

FutureGrid currently features the OpenStack Nova compute cloud.
OpenStack Nova in FutureGrid is useful if you are interested in experiments within a cloud, and in comparison of cloud middleware stacks.

This tutorial targets users interested in education and training on OpenStack internals; it describes how to run a virtual, private OpenStack deployment as an appliance.

Eucalyptus Clouds

Eucalyptus is an open-source software platform that implements IaaS-style cloud computing. Eucalyptus provides an Amazon Web Services (AWS) complaint EC2-based web service interface for interacting with the Cloud service. Additionally, Eucalyptus provides services such as the AWS Complaint Walrus and a user interface for managing users and images.

Eucalyptus is also available on distributed FutureGrid resources. Eucalyptus in FutureGrid is useful if
you are interested in experiments within a cloud, across clouds, and in comparison of cloud middleware stacks.

Virtual Appliances for Training and Education

The IaaS cloud stacks on FutureGrid enable the use of "virtual appliances" as an environment where hands-on, executable educational and training modules can be created, shared, and leveraged by the FutureGrid community. With these appliances, students are able to deploy virtual machines and virtual private clusters, where they are able to experiment with various Grid and cloud computing middleware stacks.

For tutorials on getting started with educational virtual appliances, see: